Sundance Film Festival: Half The Picture's Amy Adrion talks women in film after Me Too

Speaking at the Sundance Film Festival in London this week, filmmakers were adamant more must be done to close the gender gap in the entertainment industry.

Most films showcased at the festival are directed by women – but the big message at an opening event on Thursday was all about jobs and the gender gap.

Amy Adrion, who directed a timely documentary about the dearth of female directors in Hollywood, said more directors, more critics, more financiers must be female if Hollywood is to be reformed following the Harvey Weinstein scandal.

“There is talent all around us and you can’t just look at a small sliver of the population to tell everyone’s story,” she said.

Adrion said the #MeToo scandal had stoked discussion about equality but the number of women behind the camera was still at odds with the number of men.

When posed with the question of why there are so few women in directing, Adrion cracked her knuckles in a dramatic fashion:

“That’s the big question,” she said. Big enough to make a documentary out of it seems.

Half the Picture features AvaDuVernay, Jill Soloway, Lena Dunham, Catherine Hardwicke and Miranda July, among others, telling their stories of struggling as directors simply because they’re women.

“People have a vision of what a director looks like, what someone in that position of authority looks like, and largely it’s a white man and it takes a bit of mental reconfiguring to visualise other people in that role,” Adrion said.

“Women of colour direct 0.006 percent of movies in the USA, not even half a percent.”

“When you see the same kinds of stories over and over from the same perspective, it’s not representative of people living in society; women’s voices are certainly marginalised and women of colour are basically erased.”

The shocking statistic was one of many used throughout the film substantiating the anecdotal claims in Half The Picture’s interviews, combined with short anecdotes to undermine the central economic argument that Hollywood hires successful directors to make successful films.

Adrion explained: “There are women who’ve made huge hits and are still seen as one-offs or anomalies and those women don’t get those next big opportunities, so there’s no economic explanation.”

Viewers don’t have to take Adrion’s word for it as Half The Picture has countless women’s stories to validate her.

And their stories helped Adrion face her own challenges. She said: “These women said you need to understand that this system was not built for you and you can’t expect to embrace you.”

Adrion is quick to debunk the myth if your work is good enough you’ll succeed no matter what your gender, saying: “That’s exactly what’s been happening for the past 100 years.

“Only white men have been considered for every job in Hollywood forever, they have been favoured over everybody else.

“So it’s frustrating because a lot of white male directors will say “it’s a tough time to be a white male director, they’re only looking for women” and you’re like, maybe they’re looking for women a little bit, but it’s not like women are now directing 96percent of movies.”

That’s the number of movies directed by men each year in America.

“It’s not even close to 50percent,” Adrion added, “so is it good or bad that people are looking for women specifically because they’re women?

“I think that’s absolutely fine because it’s a corrective to what’s been happening for so long and we still have a long way to go to get even close to parity, nevermind women directing in the numbers that men have been directing.”

More women, directors mean more stories like The Tale, and the takeaway theme of today’s Sundance Filmmakers Breakfast was summed up aptly by Adrion in her final instruction: “Open your minds and hearts to stories that may not be familiar.”

Half the Picture will be in US cinemas in June and will be available on Video on Demand and Digital HD on July 10, 2018, via Gravitas Ventures (USA).